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This month the ProGen study groups studied a single topic: Time Management

You can find this in Professional Genealogy in:

Chapter 13 – Time Management by Patricia Law Hatcher, CG, FASG

A key paragraph at the beginning of the chapter states:

“Dozens of times each day we make decisions – consciously or unconsciously – to begin, continue, or terminate various activities. Many of the time management problems genealogists face do not have solutions, but if we recognize the problems, we can make more informed decisions.”

The rest of the chapter identifies and discusses 10 problems that genealogists face:

Creating boundaries

Identifying clients

Organizing time

Planning for unbillable time

Cutting time waste

Identifying procrastination

Making time for growth

Saying “no”

Giving away time

Controlling the inquiring mind

As an additional resource, we were encouraged to watch a time management lecture given by Professor Randy Pausch and review the accompanying PowerPoint slides (11 MB). This lecture was given in 2007 after Randy knew he was dying of cancer.

Our assignment this month was pretty straight forward 1) keep a time journal for a week, 2) identify time “thieves”, and 3) begin eliminating wasted time.

Thanks to a dedicated group member, I quickly received a time journal Word template via e-mail and started tracking my time. Each weekday is pretty much the same:

Wake up/get ready/breakfast

Help get our children off to school

Work

Dinner/family time

Personal time

Bed time

Throw into that some early morning work meetings, Family Home Evening, Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, and Date night and that is pretty much it. But by tracking the time, I was able to identify and put a number to some of my major time bandits.

So here are my top 3 time bandits:

Time Bandit

Reduction Strategy

TV Watching

keep log of just number of hours watching TV

set weekly limits

E-mails, blogs, and Facebook

try to touch e-mails only once

immediately delete unnecessary e-mails

unsubscribe to less-read mailing lists

set a time limit for time on Facebook

question use of some Facebook applications like “Send Karma”

Staying Up Late – At first this might seem like a consequence of wasting time instead of a time bandit. If I get to bed too late (after 11pm) then I am more tired the next day and my ability to perform tasks is lessened. So it takes more time to do things than if I were rested.

Set and keep bed time

Don’t start a new task after 10:00pm

Try getting up earlier

Exercise probably plays into this as well

A member of my group, Randy Seaver, kept a time log for two weeks and blogged about it on Genea-Musings.

Discussion Group

It was interesting to talk about the time thieves of others. Many from our group included e-mails, Facebook, blogs, and other internet trappings.

For the past few months at work, I have helped facilitate teaching the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People one-day course. Habit 3 is “Put First Things First” which talks about the Time Management Matrix. This how I summarized this concept during our chat:

Has anyone read “7 Habits” where Covey talks about the four quadrants of activities?

imagine a square subdivided into 4 squares

across the top is Urgent, Not Urgent

down the left is Important, Not Important

Q1 – urgent, important

this is crises, pressing problems, deadlines

A lot of us work in Q1, sometimes because of procrastination

Q3 – urgent, not important

just let those things go: interruptions, some e-mails, other people’s tasks put on you

Q4 – not important, not urgent

time wasters, too much tv, internet , etc

Q2 – important, not urgent

this is often neglected due to Q3, Q4

to get more time above the line (Q1, Q2) we eliminate Q3,Q4 activities

Q2 is also the area for recharging: physical, mental, social, spiritual

Overall it was another great discussion and I feel that the members of our group are wonderful.

For October we will be beginning the section on professional research skills. I am really looking forward to learning more.